>> elon musk puts his money where his mouth is. >> he has the ability to take this big dream and make other people believe that it is true. >> the determined engineer's big dreams transformed industries. >> i'm wishing the entities that are listening -- >> when they come to america, they have got nasa and the rocket. >> his way meant risking everything. >> about a week's worth of cash in the bank or less.

i took all the capital i had left and invested that in tesla or it would have died. >> others are not willing to take a chance on him or his company. you put $90 billion into solar and wind, solyndra, tesla. you do not just pick the winners and losers. you pick the losers. >> electric vehicles are really not possible in ways that it would be effective. >> but his bet paid off. we did not just repay the principal, but with interest. ultimately the u.s. taxpayers made a profit of over $20 million on this. >> elon musk has bigger dreams that might take him father than

anyone else. >> elon musk takes it a step further. >> i would like to go to mars. >> when i was a little kid, i was really scared of the dark. but darkness means absense of photons in the physical -- >> it is hard to believe he was ever afraid of anything. >> darkness is merely the absence of light. >> i was afraid of a lack of photons. >> once one of the kids said to him, look at the moon. it is one billion miles away.

he said, it is actually only -- 250,000 miles away. elon! >> he spent his life proving people wrong. he grew up in south africa. he was the oldest of three children and started school a year early. his father was an engineer. his mother was a model and nutritionist. >> he was the shortest. he was this brilliant boy. people really liked him. >> i was a bit of a smart alec. it was a recipe for disaster. >> he was picked on quite a bit. >> i read a lot of books. >> his social life was that of a typical nerd. >> i read everything i could get my hands on from when i woke up to when i went to sleep.

at one point i ran out of books and started reading the encyclopedia. >> he had a photographic memory, so he could remember everything. my daughter would say, call genius boy. >> he got tesla from ibm and he had one of the highest aptitudes for computer programming. >> musk was already thinking and figured out how to sell games. >> i was 12. >> we decided to open up an arcade. we were into videogames. it was a huge hit. we got the arcade to provide the equipment. the only thing we would do is get the city to approve what we were doing. >> but an adult had to apply for a city permit.

they had not told tell their parents what they were up to. >> they told us we could not open up an arcade. >> max is a technology and business journalist who has profiled elon musk several times. >> what is amazing is his escape from south africa. >> i remember thinking america is where all things are possible more than anywhere else in the world. america has opportunity. >> by moving, he would also avoid mandatory service in the south african army. >> it was surreal. we did not support or believe in that government. to go into military service was really out of the question. >> i told my parents i was going to canada and they begged me not to leave. >> wow. he is so independent. of course as soon as his plane lands, what do i do now? [laughter]

>> i saw canada from the highway. >> he worked odd jobs before going to queens college. >> that is where i went to college. i rarely went to class. i read the textbook and showed up. the best part is that i was able to meet girls my own age. that is where i met my first wife. >> he had a scholarship to go to stanford. silicon valley was the promise d land. >> i wanted to go where exciting things were occurring. >> he had the ability to look at the world and see what real problems would happen in 20 years. he looked around and he saw that the world changing stuff was not happening at stanford. >> i did not go to class. i called the chairman of the department and said i wanted to start this company. if it fails, i want to make sure

i can still come back. >> my kids do funny things. i'm never too concerned about them. if elon wants to drop out of college, he can always go back. >> my brother came down and joined me. >> $2000 and no friends. barely enough money for an apartment. i think he was showering at the gym. he did not have one where he was living. >> we had a futon set that were couches during the day and bed at night. >> a venture capitalist in silicon valley. >> i first met elon and his brother in the mid-1990's. they were pitching a new company. >> silicon valley in the mid- 90's was a gold rush. people were flocking to the region to make it. >> musk came up with an idea.

he wrote a little code and put it all together to create the first online city listing. >> he was the business mastermind. >> i used my programming skills. >> keep in mind, the internet was only a couple of years old. the way you found a business was when you open up the yellow pages. >> they needed help coming online. >> we had someone literally throw a yellow page book at us. do you think you will ever replace this? not only were we going to replace it, we're going to end it and keep going from there. >> it wasn't long before companies were signing up. >> we were able to get the new york times company, hearst, and other companies.

>> in 1999, zip2 was bought in cash and stock options. musk was only 28 years old. >> that is crazy. why would someone pay such an amount of money? >> when the kids sold zip2, it was the most exciting day. we could not believe it. make a million or die tomorrow. ♪

>> in 1999, he sold his first company. at 28, joining the ranks of silicon valley millionaires. >> it was acquired for a little over $300 million. i made about $22 million as a result of that. it was a phenomenal amount of money. >> it was a financial windfall. it was super fun to go out and buy cool toys. >> the fastest car in the world. >> one of the first things he did was go out and get a sports car. >> he comes from a family that really enjoys racing. he got one of the highest performance cars that money could buy at the time -- the mclaren f1. he proceeded to enjoy that around the bay area. there were a number of adventures and risk taking moves.

>> i am sure it felt wonderful to have all this money and have people recognize the success, i think he was also frustrated that his company had not become as great as he wanted it to be. it had not changed the world. it had slightly altered the course of newspaper history. from this point of view, it was a piddling accomplishment. >> i have the choice of retiring, buying an island somewhere, sipping mai tais, but that was not of interest to me at all. >> it was really what we're going to do next. in elon's case, it was really just a stepping stone. money is in a database. >> he was very rich. more money than most people could dream.

he took almost no time in between that sale and starting the company that became paypal. >> the goal was to create -- >> at the time, transactions were very slow. it could take weeks. >> he founded a company that could make electronic transfers possible. there was a rival payment company. >> the real enemy at the end of the day was ebay. >> we combine our efforts to compete against ebay. >> and the new company, paypal. >> his goal was not to create a place where you could to person-

to-person payments. his goal was to transform the financial industry. >> the online payment system, and ebay threw in the towel and acquired paypal in early 2002. >> they sold paypal for $1.5 billion. he walked away from the deal with $180 million. he was 30. >> i could afford a chain of islands. again, that was not of interest to me. >> islands were not of interest, but outer space was. >> it was more interesting than a future where we are confined to earth. >> there was no plan to go to mars.

>> it is about as big a vision as you can possibly imagine. he has enough funds to go do that. >> musk had the idea that private enterprise could re- energize space travel. in june 2002, he founded spacex. >> elon was the only funder of the company for the early years. incredibly risky. he was going to fund it all himself. it was a majority of his net worth at the time. here is an immigrant from south america who came to america and said nasa and the space shuttle, i have got to go there. >> i traveled to russia three times.

i came to the conclusion that the thing that was really holding us back from making progress in space was that rockets had not evolved since the 1950s. >> the trick is not to get into orbit, but how to get into orbit cheaply. >> that launch operations and run the company with very little overhead. inventions in all of this area has let us to improve it in the united states. >> it's taking off-the-shelf technology, stuff that was developed by nasa 50 years ago and streamlining it. in that way, he is the henry ford of space. henry ford did not invent the automobile, he figured out how to make it commercially viable. >> musk was more than just an entrepreneur.

>> if you few asked how he managed to teach himself rocket science, he read a lot of books. ♪

>> 32 year old elon musk at his next idea. he wanted to find a way to end earth's addiction to fossil fuel. >> i suggested going into the solar power next to wind.

>> he has this idea and says to his cousin come if you want to start this, i will fund you. i will be the chairman. they said, ok. it works almost perfectly. >> if you do 100 things 10% better in that area -- you can dramatically and solid date the industry that is currently a bunch of mom-and-pop shops. how about no money down? you want solar cells? we'll put them in. you don't pay a cent. it is like leasing a car, but even better. >> the company became the largest solar service provider in the u.s.

>> had this idea that he wanted to make electric cars. he wanted help humanity get off of fossil fuels. >> tesla is about sustainable energy consumption. >> he helped launch tesla with his own money. it was the first auto industry start up in decades. it was the only one born in silicon valley. >> make a high-priced car at low-volume. that was the only thing that we could afford to do. step two is a medium-priced car at medium volumes. step three is a low-priced car at high volumes. >> tesla's plan was introduce a high-end, high-performance product. then they would make an affordable car. martin eberhard, tesla's co- founder and first ceo.

>> we hope to change the way that people think about electric cars. we also know that if you start off by changing human nature, it doesn't work. let's build a car that people want to drive. let's build a car that's hot and desirable and beautiful. convince people that driving electric cars is not a compromise. >> this idea of putting it in a high-end car and breaking the mold of what an electric car was was exciting. it was no longer going to be a golf cart. this is going to be a ferrari. >> any cops watching? >> no. the coast is clear. >> when we first saw tesla, they had a good explanation of how they would get to market without spending an exorbitant amount of money and how they would create a brand. each part of the story clicked together. >> he talked about silicon valley smarts showing detroit something that they do not think was possible. >> it is electric mortars.

those are skills that are present in silicon valley and not present in detroit. >> it started with a computer battery as the power source for an automobile. tesla's chief tech officer -- >> for the first time, it was possible to drive over 200 miles and have a performance that was competitive with what a gasoline car could do. it was the first company to take those principles and put that into practice and drive it. >> governor schwarzenegger was there to test drive. >> i test drove this one. it is hot. >> it was unusual to hear about

this company in california that land to come to market with a high-end sports car. >> proved to the world that electrical cars could be incredibly fast. it was a sense of adventure and doing these things for the first time and doing it in a really scrappy way. we did some of the very first menlo park before we were actually able to rent an office. >> the big issue has been the batteries, their cost and how long they last. eric noble is president of carlab, a consulting firm that evaluates new cars and trucks. >> american consumers are very ready for battery electric vehicles. unfortunately, battery-electric vehicles are not ready for american consumers. >> the first results seem to support this gloomy forecast. >> when we first started out, it was simple and naive.

to make use of a chassis from the lotus, technology that we develop ourselves, and put that together and create an electric sports car that would be compelling. so, where did that fall apart? >> the team told him the cost had skyrocketed problems mounted. >> the dream is still there, but what have i got. ♪

>> by 2007, tesla was running out of money. fast. no one wanted to step up to save the unproven automobile startup. elon had to take the leap alone. >> we had to make some changes. we had to recapitalize the business and we had to invest twice about what we originally expected. what we expected was the outer limits. >> they got to the point where they only had money in the bank for a couple of months and there was no one around willing to put more money in. >> i took all of my reserve capital and invested it into tesla. it was very scary.

do not have it amount to anything. but there was no question that i would do that in my mind. it was too important to let die. >> i am available 24/7 to help solve issues. call me 3:00 a.m. on a sunday morning, i do not care. >> we had to make some hard decisions on personnel changes. he had to dedicate his time to the company. >> i want the names named. if someone is always on the hot seat and is always the root cause for problems, they will not be part of this organization. it is not ok to be unhappy and part of this company. if someone can't get happy, get divorced. >> they replaced one of their co-founders, martin eberhard, who had been running tesla. >> we exceeded the level that he could handle and that became apparent in 2007. >> we were going to either shut the company down or elon was going to have to